Slavery-Free Communities

Even as we tackle slavery as a global problem, we recognise the importance of local action and offer the first major examination of slavery as a local issue. This islodged in our work to help make Nottingham the world’s first slavery-free city.

We test the ‘theories of change’ underlying policy responses to modern slavery, highlight evidence for good practice, adapt and apply the latest theories on the dynamics of social practice to local policy on slavery, and share transferable, scalable and sustainable policies that can help communities to become slavery-free.

Throughout we build, test, and disseminate collaborative multi-agency policy responses to slavery, which can be adapted to a wide variety of settings. We share learning from the project nationally and tap into public sector networks to explore how our methods might be applied within varying local contexts and governance institutions. We are drawing up comparisons with other locality-based antislavery initiatives in the UK, and hope to roll out a city-based process nationally then develop a transferable model for developing countries with our NGO partners.

Collaborating for freedom conference

Please join us for a national conference on local, community-based anti-slavery strategies, partnerships and action. The day-long event is organised by the University of Nottingham's Rights Lab and the UK Independent Anti-Slavery Commissioner (IASC), Kevin Hyland, in association with the ESRC Festival of Social Sciences.

Theme

Contributor

Projects

Our transdisciplinary projects answer four main questions: 1. How many slaves exist in the world and where are they? 2. Why does slavery exist and persist? 3. What works to end it? 4. What difference does freedom make?

The 16 projects all intersect and form an ambitious platform of transdisciplinary interventions that can be scaled up as the international community works towards slavery’s eradication by 2030.